Inside the Jury Room

Trial by jury is central to our criminal justice system. Twelve randomly selected, ordinary people are handed the responsibility of deciding if alleged criminals are guilty or not guilty. They sit through the trial then retire to the jury deliberation room to reach a verdict.

We place enormous faith in the idea that this process is the best way to ensure justice is served. But no system is perfect. Occasionally there are allegations of juror misbehaviour or juror bias. Given we’re all only human, how accepting should we be of these imperfections? And how stressful can jury duty be?

Inside the Jury Room provides a rare glimpse of what happens when it all goes wrong. Do we give enough support to jurors, and how well can this system ever work?

Inside the Jury Room is a co-production between Law Report and the University of Melbourne law school.

It’s the most notorious case ever of jury misbehaviour. In the 1994 double murder trial of Stephen Young, drunk jurors used a Ouija board to ask the murder victims, "who killed you?". But is there more to this story than just hapless, irresponsible jurors?

Hearing and seeing gruesome evidence in criminal trials can take a terrible toll on jurors, sometimes leading to stress and trauma. What harm can juror stress then cause trials? And what can we do to minimise its impact?

Jurors can misbehave, threatening the right to a fair trial in many ways: Google searches; social media rants, contacting an accused, visiting a crime scene, even playing Sudoku in the jury box. How do we convince jurors to follow the rules?

Presenter

Before his career in media, Damien Carrick worked as a lawyer. Since jumping into journalism, he has won numerous awards, including the UN Media Peace Prize for Radio, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Radio Award and the Victoria Law Foundation Legal Journalist of the Year Award.